


Home Sweet Home

by justkisa



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3748732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkisa/pseuds/justkisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Khiry comes home and realizes how much he’s missed it (and missed Mix).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Sweet Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allthatconfetti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthatconfetti/gifts).



> 1) [This](http://justkisa.tumblr.com/post/115201413253/meet-nycfc-khiry-shelton-19-forward-21yo) is Khiry Shelton. 2) [He](https://instagram.com/p/z2uLpMnckX/) and [Mix](https://instagram.com/p/z2tXNck1te/) are roommates. (If you want to get a sense of how co-dependently adorable these two are, just take a gander through their respective instagrams & twitters.) 3 This is set right after Khiry came back from his recent call-up to the USMNT U-23s.
> 
> for the lovely [allthatconfetti](http://archiveofourown.org/users/allthatconfetti/pseuds/allthatconfetti) <333

Khiry has to put his stuff down to open the door. He drops it all and watches it all slump into a messy heap. He gets out his keys and runs his thumb over the _I <3 NY_ printed on the big, obnoxiously cheesy key chain Mix had bought for him after they finally found a place. He’d thought it was a joke but Mix had stolen his keys and put it on them and Khiry didn’t have the heart to take it off, not when Mix had smiled at him, wide and bright and so pleased with himself. 

He’s tired enough that it takes him a few tries to get his key in the lock. He’d exchanged a few texts with Mix when he’d landed but he’s not sure if Mix is home or not. He pushes the door open and calls out, “Hey, Mix, are—“ He doesn’t need to finish his question because Mix is right there, not two feet from the door.

He’s just taking Mix in, thinking of saying hello, starting to smile, because Mix’s smiling at him, manic and bright, when Mix slams into him so hard he has to reach out and grab onto the doorframe to keep them from toppling over. Mix wraps his arms around him and presses his face into Khiry’s neck. He’s saying something but Khiry can’t make it out. “Whoa,” he says, “Hey.” Mix is still talking, Khiry can feel Mix’s mouth moving against his neck, can feel the warm hum of his words, but they’re too muffled to make out. 

Khiry lets go of the doorframe and folds his arms around Mix. It seems the best thing - the only thing - to do. Mix presses closer and squeezes him a little harder. Mix is skinny but he’s strong and he’s curled so tight around Khiry that, for a moment, it’s like he’s squeezing the breath right out of him. “So,” Khiry says. He pats Mix’s back. He just means to do it once, but Mix relaxes and slumps against him, so he keeps on doing it. “Uh, hi. Guess you missed me?” He means it mostly as a joke, even laughs a little when he says it, but it comes out kind of shaky, a bit breathless. Mix says something but he doesn’t lift his head so Khiry can’t really make it out but the timber of it is warm and affirmative. 

They should really go inside. Khiry’s stuff is blocking the hall. Also they’re just standing there in the doorway and it’s kind of weird. Good but weird. He tugs on Mix’s hair. “Hey, man,” he says, “C’mon. Let’s go inside. I’ve gotta put my stuff away, maybe have something to eat. I’m starving. The food on the plane was gross.” Mix doesn’t budge. Khiry walks them forward a bit and gets them through the doorway. “C’mon, help me grab my stuff and then we can have dinner or something.” 

Mix lifts his head. His arms loosen around Khiry but he doesn’t let go of him just slides his arms down and curls them around Khiry’s waist. “Hi,” he says, smiling up at Khiry, “You’re back.” He sounds - and looks - pretty thrilled and Khiry can’t even give him shit about it because seeing Mix, being back in their apartment, it’s a pretty great feeling. He’d missed it, missed Mix, when he was gone. He kept looking for him over his shoulder, kept thinking of things to tell him and then realizing he wasn’t right there, wasn’t right next to him. He hadn’t expected that, didn’t think he’d known Mix long enough to miss him that way. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m back.” He thinks he should say something more but he’s not sure what to say. They just stare at each other for minute and Khiry wants to squirm under the weight of Mix’s stare. “So,“ he says, looking away and untangling his arms from around Mix’s shoulders, “You gonna help me carry my shit or what?” 

Mix smiles a little. “I don’t know,” he says. He’s playing with Khiry’s shirt, plucking at it and twisting it, and his fingertips brushing in little, darting patterns along Khiry’s back. “You got all the way up here all by yourself so…” 

Khiry cuffs Mix’s shoulder. “Aww, c’mon Mix, help me out.” 

Mix leans into Khiry and hooks his chin over Khiry’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says, “Doesn’t look like that much to me, I’m sure you can handle it.” 

Khiry shoves him and Mix stumbles back laughing. “All right, then,” Khiry says, turning away from him, towards the hall, “I see how it is. You’re not going to help me _and_ you’re laughing at me. Nice, Mix, real nice.” He leans down and starts picking up his stuff.

“Aww, c’mon,” Mix says, bumping his shoulder into Khiry’s and grabbing one of Khiry’s bags, “I was just playing.” 

Khiry leans into him. “Right, man, whatever you say. Let’s just get all this inside.” He straightens up and takes his bags inside. “I’m just going put this away,” he says, looking back at Mix, who’s pulling the door closed and locking it, “Then I’m gonna have something to eat. Did you want to eat too or what?” It’s not exactly dinner time but he’s starving. He hates airplane food. 

Mix smiles at him. “Sure. I could eat.” 

“All right,” Khiry says, smiling back, “Let me just put this all away.” He starts making his way towards his bedroom. “So,” he says, over his shoulder, “How was it here? How’re the guys doing?” 

“Good, good,” Mix says, “I keep getting dunked on in the locker room but still, everything’s - everybody’s - good.” 

Khiry laughs a little. “I saw. You have no game, man, none at all.” 

Mix kicks his heel. “Shut up. I do too. I played basketball for a long time.” 

“Uh-huh,” Khiry says, “Yet somehow you keep getting dunked on by Brovsky, I mean, really, Mix, _Brovsky_?” 

“Shut up,” Mix says, “I’ll get him.” He pauses and looks Khiry up and down. “Or maybe,” he says, with a slanted, sly sort of smile, “You could…” 

Khiry laughs and shakes his head. “Nah, man, leave me out it of it. Use your mad basketball skills or whatever.” 

Mix narrows his eyes. “I will. You’ll see.” 

“Whatever,” Khiry says and pushes open his bedroom door. His bedroom looks just like he left it, bed still made, half-unpacked boxes stacked in the corner. He drops his bags in front of the dresser. “So,” he says, looking back at Mix, “I’m just going to put this all away then food, all right?” 

Mix drops the bag he was carrying with the rest of Khiry’s bags. He leans into Khiry, bumping their shoulders together, and says, “Sure, but, like why not just leave it, if you’re hungry? It can wait.” 

Khiry wants to lean back into him. Mix’s always right up in his personal space. It’d taken some getting used to and, it’d taken going away, to realize just how used to it he’s gotten, just how much he’s come to like it. He nudges Mix with his elbow and says, “Nah, then I’ll never do it. My mom says you should always do it first thing when you get back.” 

Mix laughs and says, “Fine. Fine. If your _mom_ says…”

Khiry elbows him again, harder this time. “Are you laughing at my mom, man? Not cool.” 

Mix darts away, out of elbowing range, and says, still laughing, “Not at your mom, no.” 

“You better not be,” Khiry says. 

Mix smiles and flops down on Khiry’s bed. “I wouldn’t. I like your mom. She’s nice.”

Khiry has to smile at that. “Yeah,” he says, leaning down to open up his biggest bag, “She’s the best.”

“Yeah,” Mix says, “So, how was it over there?” 

They’d exchanged more texts than Khiry could keep track of while he’d been gone and a lot of them had been about camp and the other guys and the games but there’s something different about talking about it. While he puts away his clothes and boots and other stuff, he tells Mix all the things he forgot to tell him, all the things he couldn’t figure out how to put into a text. 

Mix smiles and interjects a few words here and there. Mostly he fiddles with Khiry’s blankets and messes up his very carefully made bed but Khiry can’t bring himself to be mad about it. There’s something about the way he looks sprawled across Khiry’s bed. He’s all rumpled, hair askew, wearing old sweats and a shirt with a stretched out collar and letters on the front that are so faded you can’t read them anymore, and Khiry wants to touch him, wants to straighten out his clothes, to smooth down his hair. And he has to look away because he doesn’t know what to do with the way his palms itch to touch Mix, the way he wants to flop down next to him and press against his side. 

He finishes up his unpacking with his back to Mix and, to distract himself, tells Mix a story about a prank some of the guys pulled. It makes Mix laugh. Khiry puts his bags away and looks back at him. Mix’s cheeks are red from laughing and he’s smiling up at Khiry. “So,” Khiry says, “Food?” 

Mix doesn’t answer right away. He pushes up onto his elbows and says, tone almost solemn, “You know that I, that we, we’re so proud of you, right? You did so well. You, uh, just you know that, right?” 

Mix had sent him a series of sweet, disjointed texts after the game against Bosnia, talking about Khiry’s dad, telling Khiry how well he’d done. They’d knocked him totally askew and he’d stared at them, his fingers hovering over his phone for a long time, looking for the words to answer them. He couldn’t find the right ones and, in the end, he’d just sent back _thanks, man_. “I, uh,” he says, and his face feels hot and Mix is looking at him so earnestly, and he still doesn’t know what to say, “Yeah. Uh, thanks.”

Mix smiles, sweet and earnest, and says, “You’re welcome.” Then he flops back down on the bed and says, “So, food?”

“Yeah,” Khiry says, “I’m starved,” and heads for the door. When he gets there, he turns to look for Mix. He’s still laying on the bed. “Well,” he says, “C’mon.” Mix holds up one arm and wiggles his fingers. Khiry laughs a little. “Nah, man, you can get yourself up.”

Mix turns his head towards Khiry and smiles. “Khiry,” he says. He drags out Khiry’s name, makes it into a plaintive, lilting thing. “C’mon.” 

Khiry rolls his eyes and goes over to the bed. “Fine. Fine.” He grabs Mix’s hand and tugs. “C’mon.” Mix smiles and, as soon as he does, Khiry knows he’s in trouble. “ _Mix_ , c’mon, don’t—“ Mix smiles wider and tugs hard on Khiry’s hand. Khiry could plant his feet and resist if he wanted but he doesn’t bother. 

He ends up sprawled across Mix, his face planted in the pillows, Mix’s hair in his mouth. Mix is laughing in his ear. He pushes himself up and squirms around a bit so he can look down at Mix. Mix is still laughing. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright because he’s laughing so hard he looks like he’s about to cry. “You,” Khiry says, as seriously as he can, “aren’t as funny as you think you are.” 

“Not true,” Mix says. He’s breathless and his words carry the echo of his laughter. “I’m hilarious.”

“Nah, man,” Khiry says, “You really aren’t.” He’s trying not to smile but he’s pretty sure he’s failing. 

“Then why,” Mix says, wriggling his arm out from between them and touching his fingertip to the corner of Khiry’s mouth, “are you smiling?” 

Khiry’s slow to respond because Mix is _touching his mouth_ and he’s having a hard time thinking beyond that. “M’not,” he finally says and tries not to make himself a liar. 

Mix pushes the corner of Khiry’s mouth up with his fingertip. “You are.” 

Khiry rolls off him and flops back onto the bed because he needs to get away from warm, soft press of Mix’s finger against his mouth. “Nope,” he says, “I’m definitely not.”

Mix laughs, quiet and low, and says, “Liar.” His tone is impossibly affectionate. “C’mon,” he says and the bed dips and shakes as he gets up. “Let’s go eat.”

Khiry gets up and follows Mix to the kitchen. Mix stops in the entrance of the kitchen. “So,” Khiry says, going past him towards the fridge, “What do we have around?”

“Uh,” Mix says, “well…” 

Khiry pulls open the fridge. He stares for a minute because apparently the answer to what they have around is two seriously sad looking bananas, three bottles of gatorade (and not even the kind he likes), and a bottle of ketchup. “Mix,” he says, letting the fridge door slam shut and turning around to look at Mix, “Did you go shopping at all while I was gone?” 

Mix wrinkles his nose. “Uh, not really.” 

Khiry sighs. “Mix—“

Mix rolls his eyes. “I know. I know. We should go at least once a week, we can’t eat out all the time, proper nutrition blah, blah, blah.” 

Khiry tries not to smile. He leans back against the fridge. “Mix, I’m starving and all we have are gross looking bananas and gatorade.” 

Mix smiles a little. “I think, maybe, we also have cereal?” 

“Not really helpful,” Khiry says and Mix’s smile falls a bit. 

“Sorry,” Mix says. Then he brightens a little and says, “I’ll buy you dinner. We’ll go out. You can pick the place.” 

Khiry smiles. “Okay. And then, after dinner, we’re going to the store.” 

Mix sighs. “Can’t we go tomorrow?”

“No,” Khiry says, “Today, Mix. I’m not eating those bananas for breakfast.” Mix opens his mouth. Khiry holds up his hand. “Do not offer to buy me breakfast. We are going to the store.”

“Fine,” Mix says, “We’ll go to the store. But dinner first. Think of somewhere to go. I’m just—“ He tugs on the hem of his t-shirt. “Going to change.”

“All right,” Khiry says, “But don’t take forever,” because sometimes Mix does, “Or I’m going to pick the most expensive place I can think of.” 

Mix smiles, and says, “Whatever you want, Khi,” which totally takes the sting out of Khiry’s threat and just makes him want to smile helplessly at Mix. 

“Just go,” he says and tries and fails not to smile.

Mix, thankfully, does not take forever to change and comes back out in a few minutes wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a Yankees hat. (He claims he has other kinds of hats but Khiry has yet to see any evidence of this.) “Ready?” he says.

“Yeah,” Khiry says, pushing off the fridge and coming over to him, “Let’s go.”

“So,” Mix says, leaning into Khiry as they walk towards the door, “What do you want to have?”

Khiry leans back into him and says, “I was thinking sushi.”

“Ooh,” Mix says, “That place a few blocks over?”

“Yeah,” Khiry says.

“Good choice,” Mix says. 

When they get to the door, instead of reaching out to unlock it, Mix just stands there in front of it. “Mix,” Khiry says, “Did you forget something?” He elbows Mix. “If it was your wallet, you better go get it because I was promised dinner.” 

“No,” Mix says, “I didn’t forget anything.”

“Well, then?” Khiry says, reaching over to unlock the door, “Let’s—“ 

Mix curls his hand around Khiry’s wrist. Khiry lets his hand drop away from the lock. “I just—“ Mix says. He’s peeking at Khiry out of the corner of his eye and biting the corner of his lip. He’s still holding onto Khiry’s wrist, his fingertips pressed against his pulse. 

“What?” Khiry says.

“I missed you,” Mix says and the words come out in a rush, so fast Khiry can barely catch what he’s saying.

“I,” Khiry says, the words stuttering out before he can think too much about them, “uh, I missed you too.”

Mix squeezes his wrist. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Khiry says and leans into Mix, pressing their shoulders together. He waits a minute then says, “Can we go now?”

“Yeah, Khi,” Mix says, letting of Khiry’s wrist and reaching out to unlock the door, “Let’s go.” He pulls the door open and out they go.

They don’t talk much as they walk to the restaurant but Mix walks so close to him that their shoulders brush with every step and Khiry doesn’t care so much if they don’t talk. He’s just happy to be back, happy to be back home in New York with Mix beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> The NYCFC guys play a ridiculous garbage can basketball game in the locker room. [Here](https://instagram.com/p/06G4jpFRnL/) is Jeb Brovsky dunking the ball over Mix’s head.


End file.
